MONTREAL — Last May, two restaurants in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve were vandalized. In November, four more were targeted. Wrapped around one of the bricks that anonymous vandals hurled through the windows was a message denouncing the gentrification, “embourgeoisement” and commercial development of the neighbourhood. The wording was harsh, telling investors to take their $25 table d’hôtes, their cheap condos and businessman ideals and get out.

“Vous n’avez pas de place icite. Votre présence nous donne envie de vomir,” said part of the message. Strong words. Angry words. Words written by people who don’t want to see one of the city’s last low-income housing options turn into another Plateau, Mile-End, Little Italy or Griffintown.

Despite the tactics, it’s understandable to see long-term Hochelaga-Maisonneuve residents take action when faced with the prospect of HoMa becoming the city’s next happening ’hood. When neighbourhoods go upscale, rents skyrocket, condos sprout up faster than Honda dealerships in Laval, and in come all the bobos (bohemian-bourgeois) to snatch up available real estate.

And yet that’s the dilemma when faced with a part of town that houses so many creative people, eager to have a go at opening a shop or a restaurant that would be unthinkable elsewhere.

I live in an upscale Montreal neighbourhood that once had a vibrant town centre. Today, there is nothing. Rents are so high that the local businesses are limited to banks and real estate offices. Whereas Hochelaga-Maisonneuve is brimming with activity, my neighbourhood is lifeless, filled with yuppies who lock themselves away after dark to drink chardonnay and gather ’round the flatscreen.

Like Verdun, Queens in New York, Brixton in London or Canal Saint Martin/République in Paris, HoMa is where young artists are flocking and ideas are percolating. Restaurants are bound to follow. The first time I went to New York’s East Village in the ’90s, I was navigating past drug addicts passed out in sleeping bags on Avenue B. The last time I was there in 2012, I enjoyed a great burger at Gabrielle Hamilton’s über-cool bistro, Prune.

Sitting beside the streetside windows at Le Chasseur restaurant on Ontario St. E. on a Saturday night, I’m as equally taken with the scene on both sides of the glass. Outside, there are young families, punky kids, seniors, lots of passersby. Inside, there’s plenty of action, too. The scene is festive and everyone looks happy.

Large wooden platters are being lowered onto bare tables. Bottles of wine abound. The background music is bopping (thankfully not pounding), and the young wait staff slide through the chairs sideways to take orders. Le Chasseur is quite the scene.

The food here follows that prevalent Montreal style of fancified bistro fare with a Québécois edge, and a few wild ingredients for the more adventurous diners. We’re not yet talking wild meats like beaver, squirrel and muskrat, which will be making an appearance on a handful of Montreal menus this fall, but farm-raised “wild” meats like bison and deer. Prices range from reasonable to steep.

The wine list is filled with a good number of appealing private imports sold at a fair price. There’s also quite a lineup of creative cocktails. It’s all laid-back and very appealing. I wish there were a restaurant even half this dynamic in my stodgy suburb.

The food arrives for the three of us on those large wooden platters, either solo or grouped together for space’s sake. We plunge in our forks and enjoy the fleshy starters made with salmon, bison and deer. The salmon was given the gravlax treatment and served simply with a scattering of sea-buckthorn berries and a topping of endive and jicama salad. Though petite in portion for its $15 price, the dish was good, if unexciting. My focus shifted instead to the bison tataki. Seared, marinated, sliced thin and flavoured with ginger, the meat was garnished with ribbons of yellow carrot and rhubarb. It was so tender and luscious — hands down, the dish of the night.

I was less enthused about our third appetizer, a chunk of deer liver served on turnip cubes with a parsley sauce. Granular in texture, the liver failed more because it had such a strong-verging-on-bitter flavour. Though my liver-loving dining companion raved, I found it overwhelming. Let’s leave it as a matter of taste, then.

Main courses continued in this carnivorous fashion. First up, a rock cornish game hen served on a bed of rapini, fingerling potatoes and yellow beets. It sure looked enticing there on its platter, and the vegetables were lovely. But a few bites in and we all agreed the bird was overcooked, robbing it of all its potential succulence.

Though the vinaigrette lacked pizzazz, a main-course duck gizzard salad worked because the “gésiers confits” (gizzards cooked in duck fat) were toothsome and tender. Gizzards can be as rubbery as tennis balls when poorly prepared, but these babies were delicious.

Our third main was a generous platter (easily shared by two if desired) starring a large trout stuffed with a mix of vegetables — spinach, beets, tomatoes, red cabbage — and served with a side dish of beurre blanc flavoured with pine needles. I loved the trout’s moist pink flesh, so delicate and tasty. And the stuffing was scarfable, too. But the butter sauce was congealed into a solid mass that didn’t taste much of anything. Good idea, bad execution.

Desserts are surprisingly scarce at Le Chasseur. We ordered the two on offer, but by this time the ambience was even more rollicking, so it took about an hour before they arrived. When they finally did, a little head-scratching was in order.

The “Maudite” beer-flavoured pouding chômeur was served on the same wooden slab (by now a dish would have been welcome) next to a dollop of cream. It was fine but too runny, and, for $9, too expensive for an “unemployment” pudding.

A slice of spice custard cake with maple fudge topping and caramel sauce was nice at first but cloying after the first few bites. Those with wine to polish off might prefer to opt for the cheese plate, which, though expensive at $18 for three small pieces, ended the meal on a lighter note than those super-sweet desserts.

Le Chasseur lives up to its bar-restaurant descriptor well, because by the time I squeezed my way through to the door at 11 p.m., the room was going at quite the fever pitch. The central bar was filled to capacity, and younger patrons occupied the lounging area close to the washroom in the back.

As much as I liked the young-and-fun drive to it all, by the end of the night I was irked by the long waits between dishes and, eventually, the bill. Le Chasseur is not a cheap night out. That, perhaps, is what surprised me most about my meal.

The neighbourhood might be up-and-coming, but this east-end restaurant already has the moxie — and apparently the customers — to charge midtown prices. Is that much-maligned “embourgeoisement” to blame? Or are high prices merely the cost of running an upscale restaurant these days, no matter where it may be?

You can hear Lesley Chesterman on ICI Radio-Canada Première’s (95.1 FM) Médium Large Tuesdays at 10 a.m., and on CHOM (97.7 FM) Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m.

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